Business News

By admin • October 21st, 2009

BEIJING: World’s largest mobile operator by subscribers said Tuesday its net profit rose by 1.8% year-to-year over the first nine months of 2009. The time may seem ripe for China Mobile to look overseas for expansion, but not every Chinese company is anxious to buy up the world. It isn’t surprising some are hoping for [...]

LOS ANGLES: Google has reported its highest quarterly profit, suggesting that the Internet advertising market is bouncing back from the recession. Google reported net profit of $1.64bn (£1bn) between July and September, up 27% on the same period a year ago. “The worst of the recession is clearly behind us,” said Google chief executive Eric [...]

BEIJING: China and Russia signed $3.5 billion deals in Beijing ahead of a meeting between the two countries’ premiers, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Zhukov said. Zhukov told reporters that more agreements would be signed when visiting Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin meets later with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao. “It’s the first time, perhaps, that [...]

NEW YORK: Global rice prices may shoot up due to decrease in reserves and reduction in rice production in India. According to analysts, increase in demand could reduce the reserves from 30 millions ton to 20 millions ton in Thailand, Vietnam, America, India and Pakistan till end of this year. UN food experts said price [...]

SINGAPORE: Oil fell in Asia Monday as fears about the weak state of the US economy, the world’s biggest energy user, led traders to sell, analysts said. New York’s main contract, light sweet crude for November delivery, eased six cents to 69.89 dollars a barrel. Brent North Sea crude for November delivery dropped eight cents [...]

NEW YORK: Global trade rose at its fastest rate touching the highs in more than five years in this July. According to the statistics issued by the Bureau for Economic Policy, a Dutch research institute, showed the volume of world trade rising 3.5 per cent in July after a revised increase of 1.6 per cent [...]

PITTSBURGH: The International Monetary Fund foresees a stronger than anticipated recovery from the economic crisis, with global growth approaching three percent in 2010, world leaders said. The IMF had estimated in July a global contraction of 1.4 percent in 2009, followed by sluggish growth of 2.5 percent in 2010, but was more upbeat as Group [...]

MANILA: Asia Development Bank (ADB) said in its report Sunday the raise in power tariffs is imperative so that the subsidy could be whittled down and circular debt eliminated. According to report, the major cause of economic slump lies in power crisis; accordingly, the government will have to curtail power wastages and losses. The reports [...]

WASHINGTON: The International Monetary Fund’s executive board on Friday was discussing selling some of the fund’s gold to provide low-interest loans to poor countries and shore up its internal finances. The move, authorized by the G-20 countries at their summit in London in April, has been long expected and discounted by commodity markets, where the [...]

ISLAMABAD: China and Pakistan have inked an agreement for the promotion of satellite technology worth $222 million. Ministry of Economic Affairs Division Secretary, Farrukh Qayyum and Chinese ambassador in Pakistan, Luo Zhaohui signed on the agreement. Under the agreement China will provide easy loan for 20 years, which would be utilized for the completion of [...]

CARACAS: President Hugo Chavez said on Wednesday Venezuela signed a $16 billion investment deal with China over three years to raise oil output by several hundred thousand barrels per day in the OPEC member’s Orinoco belt. Chavez gave few details of the deal he said was signed on Tuesday. But he appeared to be talking [...]

LONDON: Food aid is at a 20-year low despite the number of critically hungry people soaring this year to its highest level ever, the UN relief agency said on Wednesday. The number of hungry people will pass 1 billion this year for the first time, the UN World Food Program (WFP) said, adding that it [...]

HONG KONG: Asian markets were narrowly mixed Tuesday after Wall Street shrugged off trade tensions between the U.S. and China to end at its highest point in nearly a year. The dollar clawed back some losses against the yen, while oil prices hovered below $69 a barrel. The slight gains in some markets followed Wall [...]

CARACAS: President Hugo Chavez has announced the discovery of a vast gas field off the coast of Venezuela. The find estimated at 7 to 8 trillion cubic feet, about five times what Spain uses in a year was made with the Spanish energy company Repsol. Mr Chavez announced the find while in Spain during a [...]

NEW YORK: Oil prices slumped Friday as traders banked profits from a four-day rally spurred by growing optimism that the global economy is emerging from recession. New York’s main contract, light sweet crude for October delivery, finished at 69.29 dollars a barrel, down 2.65 dollars from Thursday’s closing level. London’s Brent North Sea crude for [...]

NEW YORK: Oil prices were little changed as stronger equities boosted hopes for economic recovery, outweighing U.S. jobs data that showed the unemployment rate at a 26-year high. U.S. crude settled at $68.02, up 6 cents. London Brent crude dropped 30 cents to close at $66.82. “Today’s oil price response to the long awaited employment [...]

NEW YORK: Oil prices plunged almost nine percent Monday in New York as markets were gripped by fresh worries about the slumping economy and weaker energy demand. New York’s main futures contract, light sweet crude for May delivery, tumbled to 45.88 dollars a barrel, a drop of 4.45 dollars (8.84 percent) from Friday’s close. In [...]

WASHINGTON: The US budget deficit accelerated in March to hit a record nearly one trillion dollars just halfway through the current fiscal year, as the government moved to bail out troubled institutions, government data has shown. The deficit for the first six months of the fiscal year which began on October 1 was 956.80 billion [...]

WASHINGTON: The US trade deficit fell more than expected in February to a nine-year low as a prolonged recession sliced imports, the Commerce Department said Thursday. The deficit dropped for the seventh consecutive month — by 28.3 percent to 26 billion dollars from a revised 36.2 billion dollars in January, the department said in its [...]

SARAJEVO: Islamic Development Bank (IDB) said it planned a $500 million Islamic bonds, or sukuk, issue to finance its 2009 financing program, the first sukuk issue this year in a tightening industry. “We are planning to go ahead with the issue in the next few months,” the bank’s Chairman Ahmed Mohammed Ali told media after [...]

SINGAPORE: Oil hovered near $51 a barrel Tuesday in Asia as investors mulled whether crude’s two-month rally can be sustained while global demand remains weak. Benchmark crude for May delivery rose 14 cents to $51.19 a barrel by midday in Singapore in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract fell $1.46 on [...]

WASHINGTON: US President Barack Obama has told car companies General Motors and Chrysler to revive their businesses or be forced into bankruptcy. Mr Obama has bluntly told the carmakers he is unwilling to continue the government financial support that has been keeping them in business. He has given General Motors two months to show it [...]

LONDON: Tens of thousands of people in several European countries including Britain and Spain took to the streets in their capital cities ahead of Thursday G20 summit to express their anger at the human cost of the financial crisis. Demonstrators also marched in other European capitals as politicians appealed for calm during Thursday’s Group of [...]

NEW YORK: Oil prices climbed Monday to their highest levels since late 2008 in tandem with a world stock market rally on a US government plan to rid ailing banks of their toxic assets. New York’s main futures contract, light sweet crude for delivery in May, bounced to 54.05 dollars a barrel, the highest point [...]

NEW YORK: Global stock markets this week were seen upbeat. Following US government’s over $1000 billion of investments in securities, US stock markets reacting positively went upbeat and by the end of the week NASDAQ and Dow Jones were seen surged by 53 and 12 points respectively. On the other hand in Asian markets, Japan [...]

OTTAWA: Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper says despite rising job losses the country will face a labour shortage when the recession ends. Another 82,600 workers lost their jobs in February, putting the unemployment rate to 7.7 per cent – the highest level in more than five years. Harper says these are tough times but Canada [...]

NEW YORK: Global stock market this week remained in the grip of pessimism, which saw the investors playing safe in trading. Dow Jones, S&P and Nesdak indexes recorded fall by 6.2, 7 and 6.1 percent respectively in the US stock market this week. Dow Jones index remained at its lowest after 1997 and S$P-500 index [...]

ROME: International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn said that advanced economies were in a “serious” and “deep recession,” ahead of crisis talks with G7 finance ministers. “The world economy is close to recession. The advanced countries are in deep recession,” he told foreign news agency. “We don’t see any signal for the time being showing [...]

DUBAI: World Bank has said that the surging global recession has pushed further 53 million people below the poverty line in developing countries and feared that 20 to 40 million more children would die in utter poverty. WB released projections for the current year said that 130 to 150.5 million people would fall below the [...]

SINGAPORE: Oil prices rose in choppy Asian trade Thursday in a market plagued by weak energy demand reflected in new US data that showed surging crude stockpiles. New York’s main futures contract, light sweet crude for delivery in March, gained 17 cents to 36.11 dollars a barrel. The contract is nearing five-year lows of 32.20 [...]

BEIJINGP: China’s exports fell 17.5 percent in January from a year earlier; customs authorities said Wednesday, marking the sharpest drop in more than a decade. The country’s trade surplus remained high at 39.1 billion dollars, due to an even steeper drop in imports, which plunged 43.1 percent year-on-year, according to customs data. The weakening in [...]

LONDON: Britain fighting global slowdown has cut its interest rate down to 315-year low. Bank of England, the British central bank compelled by the deteriorating economic situation has further lowered its interest by 50 basis points to 1 percent, which aims at facilitating cheap loans for restoring the confidence of the investors and encouraging new [...]

WASHINGTON: Asian nations will need a recovery in the global economy before the region can exit a slowdown as its trade and financial linkages have increased with the rest of the world, International Monetary Fund (IMF) Managing Director, Dominique Strauss-Kahn said. Most Asian economies have room to boost their fiscal stimulus packages to spur growth, [...]

ABU DHABI: Arab countries would be giving preference to locals in employment in future, as half of the work force in Arab countries constitute of expatriates. Addressing a Human resource Conference here, Saudi Arab’s Prince Turki Al Faisal bin Abdul Aziz said that the locals would be preferred in employing work force in future. He [...]